The Albion FC is one of 18 businesses to have been nominated for one of six awards.

St Patrick's Trust, a charity which helps the homeless, has also been chosen for the Sussex Business Awards.

The winners of the awards, now in their twelfth year, will be announced at the end of this month at a gala dinner at the refurbished Corn Exchange.

The trust has been nominated for the Small Business award, along with the Hayward's Heath-based factors and invoice discounters Metropolitan Factors, and Eastbourne-based independent financial advisers Robin Lloyd Associates.

Amanda Lane, one of the trust's project managers, is delighted the charity has got to this stage.

She said: "Although it is obviously a business award, we have been able to show how we have grown and managed to maintain our ethos, which is about creating an atmosphere of an extended family."

The charity was set up in 1985 by Father Alan Sharpe, the priest at St Patrick's Church in Cambridge Road, Hove, after two homeless people turned up on his doorstep one night.

Father Alan let them sleep in his church overnight and within a few weeks, there were around 40 homeless people sleeping there.

The Albion is nominated for the Business Community Citizenship Award, sponsored by American Express. The other nominees are Littlehampton Swimming and Sports centre and Southern Water (ScottishPower Learning), in Worthing.

Nominees for the KPMG Sussex Company of the Year are Chichester-based Jobsite.co.uk and three Brighton companies - Epic Group, which develops online learning solutions, FDM Group, the IT services and solutions provider, and Midnight communications, the public relations consultants which specialise in internet business.

A new award for the Sussex Retailer of the Year award is sponsored by the Argus. Shortlisted is Brighton-based discount cosmetics retailer Island Trading and Rye DIY Homecentre.

To reserve a table at the awards ceremony on November 23, call Lynna Williams on 01273 207155.